Traditional electric vehicles have rechargeable batteries. When the battery is discharged, the vehicle is parked and a power cord is connected to the battery for recharging. Certain electric vehicles have been described and developed which remove the discharged batteries and replace them with charged batteries rather than waiting for recharging of the on-board batteries. Examples of such vehicles are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,336,997 to Yates et al., 4,087,895 to Etienne and 4,102,273 to Merkle et al.
Although battery-powered vehicles have many advantages, such as reduced pollution and low noise, the range and payload of battery-powered vehicles has been very limited. A typical battery-powered vehicle generally has a short range and can require many hours to recharge the batteries. In view of these limitations, there is a need for a new method of operating a battery-powered vehicle which maximizes the energy which is extracted from the batteries and does not require recharging of on-board batteries.